"What the hell? The fuck is this? 'Epic Dumpster Bear?' What kind of a name is that? Just more Wii U eShop shovelware...." WRONG, FOOLISH AND IGNORANT PLEBIAN FOOL! This is the practically-no-budget indie platformer of which we've dared only dream for years. This is the game that recaptures the beloved bullshit "why the fuck not?" spirit that game conception has so woefully lacked these last 20 years! THIS is the masterpiece system seller that the Wii U has needed!

Okay, so maybe I made up the last part. But seriously, don't let the name or visual presentation fool you; Epic Dumpster Bear is a legitimately fun game. It's an indie game made in Unity by one person, and it shows, but not like The Letter or Cutie Pets Pick Berries (though I love the latter for the lol factor). It uses its obviously low budget to enhance its charm. This isn't a platformer for people who don't know what the word "fun" means, and it's not one for people who are too hardcore to get over themselves and won't play anything that doesn't have the tightest, most mechanically flawless controls around. It IS for people who want to play a silly game with a ridiculous plot and learn about bears. It's also Canadian as fuck. Just read the official synopsis from the developer.

An evil corporation destroyed his forest, forcing him to eat dumpster food to survive. Now its his turn to take out the trash.

How can you NOT love that? And every loading screen will teach you a bear fact. It's fun AND educational. It's your standard run-of-the-mill platformer for the most part. It's broken into six main worlds with a seventh "bonus" world, and each world fits a theme (forest, tundra, desert, ridiculously busty blonde babes, etc). The second to last level in every world is a castle (think the last level in every Mario world), and the last level of every world is a boss battle. Surprisingly, except for the World 6 boss, they get easier each time. I seriously think the first boss is the hardest in the game, and I beat the World 5 boss on my first try without taking a single hit.

The game is a total cake walk in the first world (minus the boss), the second world is still really easy, but halfway through the third world, the challenge kicks in. Not too bad at first, but you'll have to actually pay attention to what you're doing. By the second half of the game, you'll probably hit some frustration. I legit had a neighbor who lives two houses down from me tell me yesterday that he could hear me screaming "FUCK!!!" from his front yard the night before (but he's also a gamer just a couple years older than I, so he thought it was hysterical).

The bosses are, truthfully, a joke. But they're fun and ridiculous. Take, for example, a 25 foot tall wasp brainwashed by the unnamed evil corporation whose last words were "Avenge me..." You can't make this shit up. This game is indie gold, and it seems like us North Carolina folks are the only ones who've tapped into this unabashed brilliance. I know it's hard to live up to Jordan's and my magnificence, but yall seriously have got to play this game.

Phew. I did it. I beat 1001 Spikes. It doesn't play nice. Well, it plays just fine, it's just mean. Really, really mean.

Actually, I was never in any danger of running out of lives, though. I managed to make it through with more lives than I started with, actually, which was 1001. Each major relic gives a pretty substantial number of lives. The first I got gave 50, then 100, then 256, then... 1. And the second set of levels gave me some pretty good payouts, too. So I really probably dropped... well, 1000-ish lives.

So really, the game revolves around hidden deaths. Death abounds. Spikes, enemies, falling blocks, you name it. The game does teach you along the way, and you can see some of them coming... and some of them, you won't, even with some prior planning. It's too fast to make some of the decisions the first time through on the fly. So you're gonna die, a lot. It's a lot like Battletoads in some ways.

Anyway, eventually, if you've got enough platforming chops, you'll put together a perfect run and pull through. Stages are short enough that death is only a minor hindrance. Most stages can be easily finished in under a minute when you've got it down. It feels really good to be able to execute it and scrape by. I pretty much did a fist pump every time I hit an exit.

The most fascinating thing about the platforming is that there are two jump buttons. One is a short hop, the other a double-sized one. You'll absolutely need both to finish the game. I actually very much like the way it's implemented, because a "hold-the-button-longer" system would probably lead to a lot more deaths by impaling on ceiling spikes than there already are.

I also noted that the credit scroll credits Matt Kap for the artwork. He's the guy that did Castle in the Darkness, a really difficult (and fun!) Metroidvania. The music, for the most part, was done by RushJet1. I've been listening to his NES stuff for a long time, so I was glad to see he's using his skills in this arena, too.

Anyway, enough blabbering about the game. I only dropped $1 to get it, and I'd say I got my money's worth. Just... don't take it on if you're easily frustrated. You're going to repeat things and die a lot, but if you like executing perfect runs through puzzling stages, you'll probably get your money's worth, too.

ElkinFencer10 wrote:This game is indie gold, and it seems like us North Carolina folks are the only ones who've tapped into this unabashed brilliance. I know it's hard to live up to Jordan's and my magnificence, but yall seriously have got to play this game.

Seriously, people, get on this. Epic Dumpster Bear is rad, and it is a remarkably solid platformer. It is also on sale in the eShop right now!

Might and Magic III is perhaps the easiest of the Might and Magic games for new players to get into. It expanded upon the formula of the first two games with a new engine and began providing features that are now the norm, such as in-game mapping tools and the ability to use the mouse. However it also isn't quite as advanced as the strides made in later games, giving players the chance to move in and then work their way up through the rest of the series, particularly to the series highpoint World of Xeen(Might and Magic 4 and 5 combined). It also stayed true to the formula, incorporating the first person perspective of the series, the scifi influence that serves as the true undercurrent for the series, and providing turn-based combat and grid-based movement. Plus it incorporated an open world years before they became the norm, giving the player free license to go out and get trashed by monsters anywhere they want pretty much from the get go. I had a blast playing it, and I recommend it to all RPG fans.

Yes, it is open world. You can pretty much go anywhere you want at any point, so long as you have the necessary magic spells or passwords to travel and the strength to survive whatever enemies roam that area. Between this, getting the hang of navigating menus and combat, learning the basic controls, and trying to build up a little cash and equipment, the real difficulty of M&M3 is primarily front loaded. That's not to say that certain enemies which are encountered later in the game won't pose a challenge, but those challenges will be presented by the time the player has a much better understanding of the mechanics and will be working on a much more level or player-favored playing field. By the end of the first hour of play, the player will likely have built up to a point that exploration becomes possible, and from there the game pretty much stops holding your hand. You must explore on your own, because there is little really telling you what to do and where to go. Eventually these things start to be explained, particularly once you make it to the eastern swamp continent and find the skulls that advise on what to do, but mostly you'll simply pick and choose to go based on your whims and whether you believe you can survive the encounters. At first this will be the main starting continent on the western side of the map, but once you gain enough levels, spells become accessible which allow you to travel. At that point it all comes down to whether you have the right key for the door. If not, you then have to go explore some other dungeon to find it, and on and on.

Keep in mind, there are at least two ways around nearly every problem in M&M3. Need a key? Either explore a dungeon or find the NPC who has one. Need to get through a door? Either unlock it with your thief or ninja, bash it down with your fighter or barbarian, or use a magic spell to get beyond it with your arcane caster. Need to travel? Walk, teleport, walk on water, whatever. Even passwords and riddle answers are stored in one particular location, so if you don't know something, you can go there to find the answer instead of piecing it together yourself. You have a lot of tools at your disposal...most of the time. The few times you don't can be pretty jarring. For instance you have no means beyond certain arcane-only magic spells for getting past traps. A means to disarm them for someone with the thievery skill would have been nice, or someone with an alternate magic type.

There are three types of magic in the game: Arcane, Divine, and Nature. Each one has specific focuses, so Arcane hits hard with the most powerful offensive spells, Divine heals and buffs the best, and Nature has a combination of the two with some added in utility capabilities. While there are some crossovers between them(Arcane has some good mobility spells while Divine has some capable offensive ones), you generally want at least one of the three types of casters in your party. That's not to say you can't beat the game without any combination of characters; you totally can. But having access to a wide array of abilities makes things considerably easier. Starting up the game with a couple of tanks, a thief, and one of each caster type means you'll be able to do nearly anything you want to be able to do. If you prefer a more physical-combat oriented party, you can also nab the hybrid classes that combine physical tanks with more-limited caster abilities, though these have the downside of lacking focus. Noise played my hybrid Ranger(physical/Nature caster), and by the end he was mostly being used in a support role and for little else. He couldn't hit the way Ack the Fighter or Popo the Barbarian could, he couldn't pick locks like Fastbilly the Robber(who also worked well as a tank in his own right), and he wasn't as useful in an offensive magic role as either Bone the Cleric or Key the Sorceress. Instead he mostly cast Light or Protection from Elements and used his limited healing magic to make sure Bone stayed on his feet at all times. That said, that was still a necessary job, and his Walk on Water spell is one of the most important in the game, so he still had his uses. He just didn't work out so well in combat, where you spend a lot of time. Combat is where most everyone else shined though, whether it be mopping up trash(where the tanks did wonderfully) or taking down tough boss monsters(which Key brought down while Bone kept the party going). If I had to declare a game MVP, it would be Key for her ability to drop the magic hammer on folks and slay bosses nearly outright with her most powerful offensive magics. She certainly made my life easier, even if she had a rough start due to low hit points and didn't handle the day to day trash pickup that Ack and Popo took on.

I do have another complaint: lack of dice rolls. M&M3 uses dice rolls to understand combat and such, but you're never privy to that info. You don't even know how much damage you're doing, and while there are some rough estimations based on color codes, it would have been nice to know if I was doing 6 damage vs 60 to certain enemy types. Instead I was left hoping that I was doing enough and wishing that I could figure out more about the backbone. Even when spells do static values of damage or healing, you're never told. So that mid-tier offensive lightning spell you picked up? Yeah, it's doing 40 damage at best. That's not helping much against a monster with 1000 health. Or that ultimate Nature spell? Yeah, it's doing a randomized variable of damage(potentially even healing) to the enemy. Yet you have no way of knowing. Combine this with the general lack of info about where to go and what to do as well as the limited tools you have for understanding your gear's abilities and damage ranges, and it sometimes feels like M&M3 is a tough game to get to know even when you're steamrolling most enemies.

Despite my few complaints, I really liked this game. It left me to my own devices, and I had a blast picking and choosing where I wanted to go next. Hmm, there's a cave over there I could explore, or a dungeon beneath the nearby town, or a field to the south full of monsters to wipe out. Also, monster death is permanent, so if you only manage to kill one in a dungeon, you've made progress! Every single step feels like you're getting closer to your goal. For a game that can feel occasionally aimless, that was a huge boon. On the overworld this is a little complicated by the need to destroy monster spawners, and at least one location didn't seem to care and kept spawning monsters despite my destroying their spawn point, but each new area and dungeon tended to make me that much stronger for the next, so being too weak to handle the world was almost never a concern beyond the initial start. Oh, and there are some sidequests scattered about for additional loot and experience too. They don't need to be done, but you can easily gain levels off of them so every little bit helps. It's also rewarding to see the problems of the world disappear.

My ending verdict is that Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra is a marvelous game that has got me excited to play other Might and Magic games in the future. At first I expected this would be a daunting task, but M&M3 is an excellent gateway into the perks of WRPG design, and I found that I was generally pumped to be getting back to it each night for a new adventure. As it's only the first Might and Magic game for me to conquer, I have plenty left to check out. Yet it's an important first step into a classic WRPG series and a larger dive into the WRPG genre as a whole, making me even more interested in checking out games like Menzoberranzan, Pool of Radiance, or The Bard's Tale to name a few.

Glad to see you enjoyed things with M&M3 Ack! I had a lot of the same thoughts as you, and I definitely agree that the lack of visible dice rolls was annoying. I honestly can't recall if the original Might & Magic showed the damage you did or not; it definitely showed you hit vs miss.

The general consensus I've seen is that compared to its contemporaries the Might & Magic games were the most polished and least frustrating of the first person RPGs. So you might want to do the first Bard's Tale before doing M&M1; you might find going in the reverse to be hard.

Games Beaten: 2015201620172018Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.

MrPopo wrote:Glad to see you enjoyed things with M&M3 Ack! I had a lot of the same thoughts as you, and I definitely agree that the lack of visible dice rolls was annoying. I honestly can't recall if the original Might & Magic showed the damage you did or not; it definitely showed you hit vs miss.

The general consensus I've seen is that compared to its contemporaries the Might & Magic games were the most polished and least frustrating of the first person RPGs. So you might want to do the first Bard's Tale before doing M&M1; you might find going in the reverse to be hard.

Yeah, heh, figures. I may stick with some of the '90s WRPGs for a while then, so Eye of the Beholder, Elder Scrolls: Arena, or Dark Sun: Shattered Lands, that kind of thing...or I'll go knock out Ultima II so everything feels like a step up.

Eventually I have to tackle a Wizardry. That...doesn't make me feel good.

Based on what I read on the CRPG Addict it sounds like they start to get good by modern standards around 6. 1-3 are ball busters (especially if you don't back up your saves in 2 and 3), 5 is still nasty, and 4 is WTF.

Games Beaten: 2015201620172018Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.